Measuring exact time between to pulses

[Microman]

Hi all,

To be hontest, I am a beginner when it comes to timer and capture hardware. Maybe someone can help me figuring out what the best way is how I can measure the time between two separate impules i get on two separate lines. Accuracy shall be very high.

First input: some master clock pulse (1kHz) Second Input: some delayed clock pulse with high level for a few microseconds. I need to measure the time between the first pulse and the second.

First thought, use two synced timers, capture two values and calculate the difference between them. Second thought, reset a timer by the 1kHz reference pulse and capture to the timer counter register when the second pulse on a different pin is comming in.

Any ideas how to configure the STM32H743 for this?

Thanks a lot!

[Tesla DeLorean · Accepted solution]

TI has a chip that does this sort of A-B timing very accurately.

On the STM32H7 use a 32-bit TIM, TIM2 or TIM5 should suffice, clock at maximal speed/length, ie Prescaler = 0, Period = 0xFFFFFFFF

Program two Channels in Input Capture mode, say CH1 and CH2 such that CCR1=CNT and CCR2=CNT latch on the incident pulses. Where CNT increments at TIMCLK

You can then subtract the two values to arrive at a delta measurement with a clock granularity matching the TIMCLK source. I think they clock at 100 MHz, so 10 ns units.

[Microman]

Just tried it this way and it gives me reasonable results, down do 8,33ns (1 / 120MHz max. timer clock). Thanks a lot!